Tokyo Playground: the Interplay Between Infrastructure and Collective Space

Sociology Study, April 2017, Vol. 7, No. 4, 205‐211 D doi: 10.17265/2159‐5526/2017.04.003 DAVID PUBLISHING Tokyo Playground: The Interplay Between Infrastructure and Collective Space Alice Covattaa Abstract Tokyo Playground aims to investigate the leftover space produced when the infrastructure overlaps with the urban tissue and to highlight how these are metabolized, then transformed into meaningful public spaces. The “hybridization” of Tokyo is examined using three references as a starting point. First is the spatial typology of sakariba that transformed what were transitional zones into pleasure districts during the Edo period, creating what was arguably the most definitive type of collective space for citizens of Edo. The second reference is Roland Barthes’ description of the infrastructural experience. Thirdly, the book Made in Tokyo illustrated the strong mutual dependence among infrastructure, architecture, and the city as a unique characteristic of Tokyo. Transit space can be reused on the human scale with different programs related to time for pleasurable activities. Tokyo Playground aims to capture the idea of emotional space within infrastructure. It aims to highlight some possible design strategies and tools that help to domesticate the infrastructure through the injection of pleasure and playful programs with an understanding of how humans experience, occupy, and interpret such spaces. Leftovers within the infrastructure are opportunities for social and ecological reuse and these precious voids contribute to creating the contemporary soul of the city as it becomes the source of vibrant energy for transcultural urban regeneration. Keywords Infrastructure, recycle, leftover, sakariba, collective space Every day, Tokyoites typically spend one hour Yokohama, Saitama, and Chiba that are home to more commuting each way to and from home and work, than 40 million people4. which accumulates annually into a staggering 21 days On one hand, there is the massive metropolitan spent commuting1. On average, free time available to scale characterized by fast movement and Tokyoites after work is 2 hours 28 minutes while the mechanization that constitutes the hard apparatus average in Germany is 4 hours 15 minutes essential for the urban economy. It can be described in (Kowalczyk 2011). All but seven of the 20 busiest terms of the “bigness”, coined by Rem Koolhaas, in railway stations in the world are located in Tokyo2. which identity coincides with dimension and quantity. Each day, an average of 3.64 million people 3 pass through Shinjuku station , making it by far the most crowded railway station in the world. These data aKeio University, Japan give insight into the conditions of the second largest Correspondent Author: urban agglomeration in the world, covering a 〒 Alice Covatta, 155‐0032 Tōkyō‐to, Setagaya‐ku, Daizawa, sprawling metropolitan area encompassing Tokyo, 2 Chome−19−7, Japan 206 Sociology Study 7(4) On the other hand, there is the soft dimension of the center. Finally, a diagram of a scrambled egg human beings who inhabit it, with their emotions, represents no clear distinction between yolk and beliefs, and aspirations. albumen, and in which instead, everything is blended This paper aims to provide a picture of a possible together. Tokyo, in Cedric Price’s metaphor, is a design tool for answering the following question: How scrambled egg for breakfast. can design help merge these two seemingly opposing dimensions? TOKYO LEFTOVER FOR PLEASURE From a Japanese historical perspective, Tokyo’s TOKYO SUPERINFRASTRUCTURE hybridization between infrastructure and collective In contrast to other mega-cities, even those that have a space takes its roots from the typological form of comparatively dense population, the Tokyo sakariba, considered by some scholars as its precursor Metropolitan Area is a paradigmatic case study (Kowalczyk 2011). Sakariba was the term used to defined by its uniquely extensive network of public collectively refer to the entertainment and pleasure transportation. The region has the highest average districts of the Edo period. Etymologically, the term number of people using public transportation to derives from two words that clearly explain the commute to and from the outskirts, and in the essence of this place: sakaru, which means to be Biennale of Venice in 2006, it was highlighted that 75% active, to be vigorous, and to flourish; and ba, of residents use public transportation in Tokyo, while meaning “place”. Together, they make up the word in London, the proportion is half (Burdett 2006). sakariba, which is a catch-all term for settings that The bigness of Tokyo, in terms of the flow of provide pleasure and amusement such as tea rooms, people and transportation systems conveying them, places of gathering for street artists, food stall districts has resulted in a complex and idiosyncratic in earlier periods; and bars, pachinko parlors, izakaya, infrastructural network. This system forms the urban and nightclubs in the present. tissue into multiple layers: above ground, underground, Spatially, the sakariba was defined as the busiest commercial buildings, manufacturing facilities, retail part of the city associated with pleasure and complexes, residential areas, public spaces, etc. entertainment. It took form during the Edo period and Each urban element hybridizes its identity as it henceforth grew spontaneously in open spaces and interacts with its surrounding infrastructure, resulting transitional zones because originally sakariba was the in what can be described as a “scrambled” landscape. place of refuge in case of fire and the place of trade The term “scrambled” is taken from an illustration and shipping, then it later expanded around bridges titled “The City as an Egg” created by Cedric Price. (Kowalczyk 2011). Generally, they were located at a The English architect, who often used food as a fair distance from residential areas and were closer to metaphor to illustrate architectural concepts, created a business districts, making them easily accessible after diagram of three eggs in 1982 as a schematic for the work for the masses. The spatial gap between work evolution of city planning. The first is the boiled egg, and home assumed an important cultural aspect in or the “walled city” in which the distinction between citizens’ lives. the yolk/center and the albumen/surroundings is However, the temporal aspect of sakariba is what well-defined by clear borders. Second, a fried egg gives this spatial category its soul as the activities represents the early modern formless expansion of the associated with it took place only in a precise interval peripheral area but still retains its historically defined of time between the Japanese concepts of hare and ke. Covatta 207 The time of work and everyday commitments falls what this new complex should be called?) is stripped of that sacred character which ordinarily qualifies the major under ke (profane) and in contrast, the time of prayer landmarks of our cities: cathedrals, town halls, historical and rest falls under the category of hare (sacred). It is monuments. (Barthes and Howard 2009) the gap in between work and rest which is devoted to pleasurable activities, such as socializing over glasses Barthes rightly predicted the crucial role that of sake in an izakaya establishment where work is infrastructure would play in forming the culture of this temporarily forgotten or window-shopping on the way city. It is archetypal of Tokyo’s DNA described in the home. The most important aspect of this phenomenon typological research titled Made in Tokyo (Kaijima, that persists to this day is that the sakariba negates all Kuroda, and Tsukamoto 2012). The case studies social constraints and hierarchies, providing people presented therein highlighted Tokyoites’ affinity with with an almost utopian “classless capitalism” (Slater infrastructural beautification and recycling: 2011) scenario. Traffic space has intruded into architecture in order to allow the execution of highly developed transportation “TO COMMERCE, TO TRANSITION, TO system… The development of the logistic network has DEPARTURE” affected a huge change, and is one of the defining elements which have shaped the form of the city. Several of the The infrastructural network does not consist only in building of made in Tokyo reflect this kind of change and the flow of people. Instead, it is a sophisticated beautifully condense the dynamism of this city. mechanism that functions on a multitude of scales and layers. When simplified, it is a combination of two THREE CASES main systems: one being the functional apparatus of infrastructural space composed by stations, railway The sakariba concept functioned as an interval of lines, exits, escalators, elevators, etc., and its space and time. It was a design example that shows accompanying components are the collateral activities how the transitional space compenetrates everyday life. aimed at completing and augmenting the commuting Today, this interaction is still visible in different experience such as shops, department stores, nuances within Tokyo’s infrastructure as pointed out convenience stores, restaurants, bars, and other by Roland Barthes and recently by Yoshiharu facilities that are associated with leisure and Tsukamoto et al. The second part of this paper aims to socializing. Both systems are deeply integrated into highlight this interaction through three case studies. the urban tissue and citizens’ lives. The subjects of the case studies found in

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